Getting Published- A 7-step Process

By Rugare Mugumbate

My first research article was published in 2013 in an African journal published in Zimbabwe by the National Association of Social Workers Zimbabwe, the African Journal of Social Work (AJSW). I co-authored this work with the late Professor Andrew Chad Nyanguru. The journal article has now been cited over two hundred times in several countries across the globe and downloaded more than 20 000 times in 173 countries. These figures are based on what is available online, a lot reading and citing happens offline.

The journal article has led to more than 10 conference and webinar invitations, as well as lectures and media invitations. The high usage of this article has impacted my thinking about the process of getting published, particularly for African academics. Below are provide seven steps that I think are crucial, particularly for African academics like myself.

Step 1 – Identify a relevant knowledge gap, ask relevant questions

In this case, the gap that we identified was lack of African philosophy in African social work. This is a huge gap even today. African social work is taught, learned, practiced and researched from a European or American philosophy. The pillars of African philosophy are relations and familyhood (ukama and ujamaa), collectivity (umoja), freedom (uhuru) and African justice (uhaki) and reciprocity (usawa) were all lacking from African social work. Individualistic (moja) and capitalistic (upesa) were dominant.

A research or knowledge gap is made more clearer by asking the appropriate questions. Often people ask the same questions others are asking or in worse circumstances, they ask questions as if they were not Africans. In this case, a wrong question could have centred on the inadequacies of Ubuntu as a philosophy. This does not help, it only reinforces the view that African knowledge and philosophy is inferior. We should not stop telling about the weaknesses of ubuntu, but if we make those the main questions then we are missing the point. In our article we delved into the weaknesses but made it clear that some of the supposed weaknesses emanate from the colonisation of African worldviews.

Step 2 – Collaboration and mentoring

My first article benefited from collaborating with Professor Nyanguru, who unfortunately died before it was finalised. He provided mentorship.

Step 3 – Prefer African literature, theories, models, designs, methods and techniques.

To answer the questions, the starting point is usually looking at the literature, then theories. There are several African theories of social work and the body of literature has grown to an extend that there is no excuse in using non-African literature for our research, teaching and learning. In the article, we used majority African literature (90%), and this is the model I have adopted since then. It is the same with theories, there is enough already African theories of social work for us not to rely on non-African theories.

The question of how do I research, is answered by existing research designs and methods. There are enough designs to shape African research already, and also enough methods and techniques.

Step 4 – Gather relevant data or information, go beyond the usual

The information that we used in this article mainly came from the field of philosophy because there was no information about Ubuntu in social work literature. We went beyond the usual. We did not do primary data collection, but if we had done, we were going to use interviews or questionnaires. There are several methods suitable for exploring African knowledge (baliano instead of a delphi study; decolonised interview or walking interview instead of general interview; dare or indaba instead of focus group etc, there are many methods.

Step 5 – Analysing data grounded in African philosophy

Philosophy guides all processes of writing, including analysis. The meanings and themes you come up with should add value to African knowledge. In the past, and even now, research happens to destroy not enhance African knowledge.

Step 6 – Reporting, publishing and dissemination in an African focused way

Research is not complete until it is reported, shared and used. In this case, we opted for the African Journal of Social Work because it is in such publications that this kind of research makes impact. We chose not to publish in journals that were popular in the discipline or the so called international journals. Most of the so called international journals are actually national or regional. The noun international is usually used to perpetuate dominance. For example, writers will be expected to publish in those ‘international’ journals at the expense of publications in their country or region. Surprisingly, those in countries promoting internationalisation will not publish in Global South journals, they say they are inferior. At the end there is an imbalance, Africans publish in so called international journals but those in the Global North do not publish in African journals.

Step 7 – Maximising impact

In the step above, I did say that research completes when it is used. Actually, this is not correct, research doesn’t end. It is a continuous process. After we got published, we received several questions about Ubuntu, so we had to answer them. This has happened so consistently, with the support of evidence that the end result was recognition of Ubuntu and its role in social work. This happened at conferences, webinars and invited lectures. An important channel has been the web, particularly resources that have been made available on the ASWNet website, including lectures slides, recorded lectures and images. More recently, an Ubuntu Research Group was formed to extract more knowledge from Ubuntu for use in social work and development.

There are still some gaps though, for example, social media has not been maximised to scale up impact. Books have not been published for libraries but there are some projects going on including the book on that will be web based with own website and print and another book project. There have been other international projects but the major disadvantage is that there publications are costly, even those who contribute to the books won’t afford to buy them.

In summary

• Be relevant to African philosophy
• Ask correct questions
• Decolonise
• Collaborate
• Recognise, value and support local publishers
• Take action to maximise impact